Many Parents of Adolescents with Borderline Personality Disorder Are Suicidal

Both early adversity, often related to parental abuse or neglect, and familial transmission of psychopathological vulnerabilities related to personality and mood constitute risk factors for borderline personality disorder (BPD). Realizing that exposure to and having to contend with suicidal parents inflict inordinate levels of trauma on children, investigators conducted a first-ever multinational European study of suicide attempts in parents of adolescents with BPD.

There were 85 BPD adolescents and 84 healthy control participants, matched on age, sex, and socioeconomic status (mean age, 17; 87% female). Among patients, 34% reported suicide attempts in their parents (73% in mothers; mean age of patient at first parental attempt, 13), averagi…